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홈 / Romance / Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride / Chapter 23: Labor Pains

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Chapter 23: Labor Pains

작가: Evve
last update 게시일: 2025-12-22 16:40:32

Elias Ward’s card sat on the wobbly table for three days.

It was a thick, cream-colored rectangle of heavy cardstock, a stark, elegant contrast to the cheap, peeling veneer of her attic room. It was a lifeline she was too terrified to grasp.

He saw her. He had looked past the black dye, the cheap coat, and the haunted eyes, and he had seen the design. He had seen the fear.

To call him was to step out of the shadows. It was to admit she was more than "Ariane Rousseau," the plongeuse. It was a ri
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  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 461: THE BATTLEGROUND

    The boardroom of Vale-Cross Global was designed for consensus. The white oak table was round, the chairs were equal in height, and the acoustics were engineered to encourage dialogue.Today, however, it felt like a boxing ring.Aurora sat at the edge of the room, ostensibly taking notes but really playing referee. Liam was at the head of the table, his face a mask of careful neutrality. Marcus leaned against the wall, arms crossed, looking like he wanted to intervene but knew better.And in the center, facing each other across the expanse of wood, were her children.Ethan was seventeen. He wore a hoodie and sneakers, his laptop open in front of him, displaying a dense wall of code and financial projections. He looked like the future—fast, impatient, and terrifyingly smart.Hope was fourteen. She wore her 'creative lead' uniform—black turtleneck, architectural jewelry. She had a sketchbook and a stack of fabric swatches spread out like a defensive perimeter. She looked like the soul of

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 460: THE DIVIDE

    The break room on the twelfth floor of Vale-Cross Global was designed to be a collaborative space. Low sofas, whiteboards for brainstorming, a barista-grade espresso machine.Ethan Vale-Cross hated it.He stood by the window, a can of energy drink in his hand, watching the construction crane across the street lift a steel beam into the sky. It was precise. It was efficient. It was necessary.Behind him, the room was buzzing. But not about code."Have you seen the prototypes?" a junior developer whispered to a marketing intern. "The resin vase? It's incredible. It looks like... like frozen light.""I heard the launch party is going to be at the Met," the intern gushed. "Hope Vale-Cross is a genius."Ethan crushed the aluminum can in his hand. Crunch.Genius.That was the word of the week. Hope was a genius because she glued metal shavings to wood. Hope was a genius because she made a chair that looked like a cloud.He walked over to the recycling bin and dropped the can.He walked out

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 459: THE PILOT

    The boardroom of Vale-Cross Global had witnessed mergers, hostile takeovers, and the near-collapse of a dynasty. It had absorbed the shouts of angry men and the silence of terrified ones.Today, it was quiet. But it was a focused, electric quiet.Aurora stood at the head of the table. She wasn't wearing the armor of the early days—the severe chignons and the black suits. She wore a cream silk blouse and trousers that moved with her. She didn't need armor anymore. She was the structure itself.She clicked the remote.On the screen, the rendering of the resin vase appeared. It rotated slowly, catching the virtual light."The Atelier," Aurora said. Her voice was steady, pitched for the acoustics of the room. "A micro-division focused on artisanal home goods. Limited run. High margin. Sustainable materials sourced exclusively from our construction waste."She looked around the table.Julian Thorne was there, older now, his hair completely white, but his eyes still sharp. Elena sat next to

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 458: HOPE'S PROPOSAL

    The dining room table was no longer a place for meals. It was a stage.Hope stood at the head of the table. She was fourteen years old. She wore a black turtleneck and wide-leg trousers—an outfit she had borrowed from Sophia’s "minimalist archive." It was slightly too big in the shoulders, but she liked the weight of it. It felt like armor.She adjusted the lighting. The dimmer switch was set to fifty percent. The afternoon sun was filtered through the sheer drapes, creating a soft, diffuse glow that hit the center of the table perfectly.On the mahogany surface, there were no plates. There were three objects.A vase made of poured resin and reclaimed glass.A swatch of fabric that looked like a storm cloud woven into wool.A sketchbook, closed."They're here," Ethan whispered.He was sitting in the corner, acting as her technical support (he was running the projector she didn't plan to use, just in case). He looked up from his tablet. "Do you want me to announce them?""No," Hope sai

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 457: THE MENTOR AND THE STUDENT

    The view from the corner office of Vale-Cross Global hadn't changed in ten years, but the man looking at it had.Liam Cross stood at the window, nursing a cup of tea. He drank less coffee these days. Dr. Hale had been right about the cortisol; survival was a marathon, not a sprint.Behind him, at the smaller desk usually reserved for junior associates, sat Ethan.Ethan was sixteen now. He had grown into his height, filling out the lanky frame with the lean muscle of a runner. He wore a button-down shirt that fit him properly, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing wrists that looked capable.He was typing. Fast. The sound of the mechanical keyboard was a rapid-fire staccato in the quiet room."You're typing like you're angry at the code," Liam observed, turning around."I'm not angry," Ethan said, not looking up. "I'm optimizing. The legacy database for the foundation housing grants is a mess. It's built on spaghetti code from 2015. If I don't untangle it, the scholarship disburse

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   CHAPTER 456: THE INTERN

    The code on the monitor wasn't just text. It was a language, and right now, it was screaming.Ethan Vale-Cross sat in the bullpen of the AVA-Cross Technology Division on the twelfth floor. He was sixteen years old. He was wearing a hoodie he had bought at a thrift store in Brooklyn because he didn't want anyone to know his sneakers cost four hundred dollars. He had an ID badge clipped to his lanyard that simply said E. Cross - Summer Intern.Most people assumed he was a nephew. Or a cousin. Or a charity case.They didn't know he was the heir.And Ethan intended to keep it that way."It's a memory leak," said the Senior Engineer, a man named Patterson who had been sweating through his shirt since 9:00 AM. "It's in the kernel. We have to scrap the update.""We can't scrap it," another engineer argued. "The Tokyo integration goes live in forty-eight hours. If the logistics platform crashes, we lose real-time tracking on half the fleet."Ethan didn't speak. He adjusted his noise-canceling

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 113: Aurora's Confusion

    The walk-in closet of the penthouse was usually a place of order. It was a catalogue of armor: the black tunics, the charcoal suits, the "wolf" coats arranged by fabric weight and threat level. Tonight, it was a disaster zone. Clothes were piled on the velvet ottoman like casualties of war. Silk

    last update최신 업데이트 : 2026-03-25

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 119: The Birthday Cake

    The sun had dipped below the horizon, leaving the Montauk beach house bathed in the soft, indigo light of twilight. But on the deck, under the canopy of the white tent, the candles on the massive, dragon-themed cake burned bright and defiant against the coming dark. Ethan sat at the head of the t

    last update최신 업데이트 : 2026-03-25

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 116: The Party

    The morning of July 14th broke over Montauk with a clarity that felt like a promise. The sky was a brilliant, unblemished blue, the ocean a shimmering expanse of diamonds. The beach house, usually a solitary outpost against the elements, was transformed. It was a fortress of joy. A massive whit

    last update최신 업데이트 : 2026-03-25

  • Runaway Heiress: The Billionaire’s Forgotten Bride   Chapter 110: The Ethical Dilemma

    Liam Cross sat in the dimly lit study of his private residence, the silence heavy around him. The digital clock on his desk read 2:00 AM, but sleep was a distant memory. In front of him lay the "Secret Heir" article, the black text glowing ominously on his tablet screen. It had been two days since

    last update최신 업데이트 : 2026-03-25
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